Abstract
Examining the sapir-Whorf hypothesis, The author addresses the questions whether language affects perception and whether grammatical categories affect conceptual categories. He argues that advocates of linguistic relativity have attributed to language an unjustified degree of causal efficacy and that linguistic idealism is contradicted by the results of experimental psychology. Then, Considering the claimed correlation between grammatical and conceptual categories, He argues that grammar has no metaphysics and does not influence thought. The author concludes that language in use embodies a point of view only in the weak sense that relations and distinctions implicit in necessary concepts constitute a philosophical theory about reality. (staff)